Men's Basketball

KU basketball notebook: Wiggins may be nearing decision

McDonald's East All-American's Andrew Wiggins looks up during the first half of the McDonald's All-American boys basketball game in Chicago, Wednesday, April 3, 2013.

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And then there was one. ...

No. 81-ranked Allerik Freeman’s commitment to Baylor University on Tuesday means all but one of Rivals.com’s top 150 players in the Class of 2013 have committed to a college with seven days remaining in the spring signing period.

The lone uncommitted player, of course, is No. 1 Andrew Wiggins, a 6-7 senior forward from Huntington (W. Va.) Prep, who has a final four of Kansas University, Kentucky, Florida State and North Carolina. Wiggins will either sign with a school by the May 15 deadline or show up on a campus at some point before the first day of the 2013-14 school year to ink scholarship papers.

“I know for him, he’s just ready to get the decision over with,” Leslie Thomas, Wiggins’ host family mom in West Virginia, told the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Wiggins has told Thomas that his mother, Marita Payne-Wiggins, is planning to travel to West Virginia from Canada to be on hand for an announcement. Thomas told the paper her arrival would be “sometime in the next week or so.”

“He said, ‘When I declare where I’m going, my mom is going to be there with me,’” Thomas told the Courier-Journal.

Freeman, a 6-4 senior shooting guard from Findlay Prep High in Henderson, Nev., who chose Scott Drew’s Bears on Tuesday, asked out of his UCLA letter of intent when Ben Howland was fired.

FSU the leader?

Jon Rothstein of CBSsports.com lists Florida State as the leader for Wiggins (4-1 odds), followed by Kentucky (6-1), KU (8-1) and Carolina (10-1).

“We’ve felt all along that Wiggins would wind up in Tallahassee, and we’re not budging from that proclamation. The Seminoles have a distinct connection with the talented small forward that none of the other schools on his list possess — both of his parents are alums,” Rothstein wrote.

Cobb talks

Ben McLemore’s former AAU coach, Darius Cobb, spoke on ESPN’s Coach and Company radio show on Tuesday, a day after Cobb had a Florissant, Mo., firm put out a press release stating KU knew nothing of his dealings with middleman Rodney Blackstock. Blackstock allegedly paid Cobb $10,000 to get close to KU star McLemore.

Cobb told co-host Linda Cohn he didn’t know he was jeopardizing McLemore’s amateurism by accepting two $5,000 payments from Blackstock.

“I was under the understanding because I was not his mother or father, boyfriend or immediate family it was OK,” Cobb said. “All I was doing I was almost being paid for being a consultant, just to hear everybody out to start to gather information in the event he did decide to go pro at the end of the year.”

Cobb explained the purpose of two all-expense paid trips to Los Angeles with Blackstock and McLemore’s cousin, Richard Boyd.

“The only thing I did was I went on fact-finding missions,” Cobb said. “I talked to individuals. No money was transacted. I just saw a couple plans as to what this company was willing to do for Ben or how they would set it up depending on where he went in the draft financially — CPA’s covering taxes, how to incorporate to help his sisters or whoever Ben deemed necessary without it coming out of Ben’s pocket. I talked to people about possible roles in starting an AAU program with Ben so he could help in his community. Those were the types of things discussed.”

Cobb was asked Boyd’s role on the two trips: “Basically to accompany me as I gathered information to make sure I wasn’t doing anything unethical, doing anything to jeopardize Ben,” Cobb said.

Cobb was asked if KU or McLemore knew McLemore’s cousin went on those trips: “No, they did not,” Cobb said.

Cobb has not been able to reach McLemore.

“My hope for Ben McLemore would be to run from Rodney Blackstock as far as possible, to go back to the original plan which was to sit down with three to four agents, three to four reputable finance people, let them do a presentation on an even playing field not based off who can do what underneath the table and pick the best person (agent) for his career,” Cobb said.

Comments

Here is how it went down:
A. Cobb takes money and promises Ben to Blackstock.
B. Ben goes pro.
C. Cobb thinks he should get more or should have gotten more for "delivering" Ben.
D. Cobb probably is a prick and gets cut off from family.
E. Blackmail fails so he follows through with dragging Ben's name through the mud.
F. Everyone realizes Cobb is a steaming pile.
G. Cobb begins with "damage control" stating he was doing it all for Ben out of the goodness of his heart/anus.

I feel that he is clueless, and his explanation, sort-of, explains the string of events leading to the declaration. But now, he needs to get back into the background until the draft is completed, otherwise he is going to start hurting Mr. McLemore. I don't believe that with what I have heard so far, either Ben or KU is involved, and will have to worry about anything.

These quotes from Cobb are HUGE. It doesn't change the fact that technically rules were broken but if all this is true about Mclemore and KU being completely unaware of anything, it will make it hard for the NCAA to make us vacate games. They will take heat if they don't but I think they would take just a little more heat if they do.

Take KU off your list. Return the Jayhawk hat you've purchased for your ridiculous impending hat ceremony. I don't care how good a player you are. It's utterly absurd how long you've dragged this out. Your actions speak louder than any words: you absolutely LOVE attention and drama. You're an attention wh#re. And attention wh#res don't fair well at KU.

YOU are dragging this out, and then YOU are saying "I wish it was over with." That's f###ing absurd. You could quickly, quietly, and humbly end this all with ONE phone call. Not some stupid hat ceremony at some undefined point in the future. Just one f###ing phone call!!!

You are fools gold. You are an impressive reward, tragically buried by a mountain of risk.

Go away. I like our roster exactly the way it is. We don't need an attention-grabbing, chemistry-disrupting, media loving, one-year-staying, NCAA-violation-risking, attention wh#re.

Go away.

Sincerly,

One KU fan who wishes you'd just shut up and take your talents to south beach

This might sound absurd......but if Wiggins chooses Kentucky, I think I might root harder for Kentucky to lose next year than for KU to win.

To me, it's insane that Kentucky could get that recruiting class, regardless of the school and coach. McClemore is a blip on the radar compared to what MUST be going on at Kentucky. Everyone knows it......it's only a matter of time.

Take a wild guess who my most HATED team is. :-) Sorry for the venting!

The worst part is I feel like we might have had Wiggins. We still might but I just don't see it now. The timing of all this was just as bad as it gets. If a rival coach would have gotten to choose a time in the year to break this story, he would have chosen a time within 12 hours of when the story actually broke. Sometimes you're the bird and sometimes you're the statue.

I would "get" the whole FSU alma mater thing if he was going for 4 years, but he wouldn't be there long enough to figure out where the cafeteria is. I'm pretty sure things have changed since mom and pop went there. They need to let him decide what is going to be the best place for him to spend his 6 months of college basketball experience.

If Wiggins chooses Kentucky, the NCAA should focus 100% attention and their efforts from people like Cobb and Blackstone and direct it to Calipari. If it's too good to be true, then it typically is...LANCE ARMSTRONG comes to mind. Calipari is ruining college basketball IMO. He needs to take his money back to the NBA. Good luck McLemore, we love and support you! Rock Chalk!!!

I love how people assume that if a kid chooses Kansas it is because he wants to be part of a great program with a proven coaching staff and a shot at excellent results but if they choose Kentucky it's because they are getting paid. can my fellow KU fans PLEASE stop acting like fools? It's embarassing and makes us look like petty children.

I would not blame Wiggins for choosing Kentucky AT ALL. If he went there they would be the odds on favorite to win the title and shouldn't the kid want to win a national title in his only college season?!?

KU and Carolina would also be great spots for him. Frankly the only choice I would question would be Florida State, where it would only be to make his parents happy. If his parents are so self-involved that they can't be happy for their child wherever he goes then they SUCK as parents.

Oh please. A kid has parents who are married, presumably for all of the kids life, have stayed together, raised him to be a level headed kid, destined for greatness, and you say they suck as parents if he goes to Florida State?

On the one hand you correctly state that KU fans act foolish if they criticize a kid for going to Kentucky, then you do even worse and tell a kid and his parents that they suck for making a choice to attend a college. You pretend to know his motive for wanting to go to FSU "only to make his parents happy". Well you know what, if that is true, how warped are you that you'd criticize a kid for wanting to please his parents?

I could really go on and show you all of the thousands of examples of horrible parenting that has gone on in the lives of kids who play at KU and beyond. But you know about that already.

What you wrote is really the most embarassing thing I've seen on here in a long time.

I am not saying that they are "horrible parents" in the sense that truly horrible parents are. It's just unfortunate if they are pressuring him to go thier because it is their alma mater. By virtually every measure, FSU is the worst choice for their kid. They will not compete for a Final Four bid with Wiggins there. Their coaching staff is not known for developing players for the NBA.

But hey, maybe he doesn't care about that and he just wants to play in live in nice weather amongst a hot student body. Then he should go to FSU. Maybe he wants to play on a nationally irrelevant team so he won't feel the pressure of playing on national tv very often. Then he should go to FSU.

"The most embarassing thing I have seen on here"? Did you just start reading yesterday? A bit dramatic...

Sounds to me like KU officials have explained to Cobb, in detail, exactly what occurred. In other words, his original story has been scrubbed as clean as possible. With that said, it's time for him to SHUT UP!

I can understand Mr. & Mrs. Wiggins passion for their alma mater, but I get a bad taste when parents try to force the hands of their children. I am more encouraged to teach my children how to evaluate circumstances, determine the pros and cons of each decision and and make the best applicable choice. This is a better foundation for decision making than "hey just do what we did" technique.

I just hope Andrew chooses the best fit for him and gets the most out of his time in college.

Agree completely on you parent / child decision making process. Great point.It also has occurred to me that if I were Zenger, I might consier dropping out of the Wiggins sweepstakes while we are still in this mess. Signing someone like Wiggins increases the chances that issues like this arise. Can you imagine if similar issues were to surface with Wiggins while the NCAA is trying to figure out the McLemore issue?
Also, I am amazed that top recruits continue to sign up to go to Baylor. With all of the underachievement by the team, hasn't it been proven that Drew is not a good coach? Maybe the NIT win (in convincing fashion) was redemption. He must be a heckuva salesman.

Ralster, good point, but my comment was about going to Baylor vs. any other program that might have been recruiting him..........not us. Maybe you thought I was inferring that I was disappinted he did not come to KU.........I'm not. I'm sure he had other choices and could have played at those schools, but he chose Baylor.

All he gets is the family thrill for playing at the family alma mater. They will be good, but nothing else. I don't think he cares at this point. He was really big on making an impression for Canada too.
What a great legacy to attend KU, home of Canadian Dr. James Naismith. They are both Candians and it's special that Naismith started the game at KU and Wiggins has a great chance to follow his footsteps as a fellow-Canadian. Wiggins could use that to increase Canada's prominence in the game of basketball and part of the historical Candian basketball legacy. He would also have a chance of winning a conference championship and possibly a NC.

How is Andrew Wiggins & his parents love of their alma mater any different then Xavier Henry and his father's love of KU? Or for that matter, would Danny Manning have chosen KU if his father hadn't been hired as an asst. coach.

No, we are hardly innocents in this game. But the NBA could help sort this out if the league took the same stance as MLB. You can take the kid right out of high school, but if the kid goes to college, the school gets the kid's services for at least 3 yrs.

You didn't say it nearly as strongly as twocoach44 did above, but how do you know what the conversation has been between parent and child? Seriously, is there something wrong with parents and their children making a decision together without someone here presuming to know what's best for that child? If he's that good of a player going to Florida St isn't going to hurt him one bit. Jeremy Lin played at Harvard, didn't hurt him any. Larry Bird played at Indiana St in the only three years they've been relevant in college basketball. Karl Malone, Louisiana Tech, I could go on, but goodness, let these kids make their decisions without making them seem like they're dumb for making their decision.

I've been tooting that horn for a long time. The family thing at FSU makes little sense to me when you consider Nick being at WSU. Someone lectured me about Nick's talent and status to justify his choosing WSU. NIck is not his brother at all, but if it was a family thing, Nick would be at FSU regardless of his ability.

Nick Wiggins wasn't a good enough player to play at Florida St. as a scholarship player. Wiggins played JuCo ball in Illinois and the only 2 offers he had coming out of JuCo last year were to Wichita St. and Oregon St. If he wanted to go to FSU as a preferred walk-on similar to how Christian Moody and Connor Teahan ended up at KU, I'm sure he could've done that. Florida St. is by no means an elite program, but they do recruit higher caliber kids than WSU and OSU do nationally. Michael Snaer was a top 10 player from California coming out of HS and ended up at FSU so it wouldn't be unprecedented for FSU to land a very highly ranked player.

There was a rumor and sure it was nothing but, that his dad had him down to KU and FSU. Either he attends FSU for the family or pick KU apart from FSU. It's pretty selfish of his parents to push him at FSU when they have little to no chance at much even with AW.

FSU will have a better record at best and maybe make the tourney, but don't think AW is even that good to sustain an entire team. Hamilton just wants him to justify his job.

I have literally heard every single possible combination of teams that Wiggins is allegedly "down to". UK and UNC. KU and UNC. KU and FSU. FSU and UK. KU and UK. I have heard them ALL the last two weeks. NONE of the rumors have any reliability to them.

Whoever ends up being "right" in their random guessing of what school he picks will proclaim that they have excellent inside sources, but it is really a complete mystery at this point. Flip a coin and you have as good a chance at being right because that might be how the kid actually makes his decision. I hope we get him but if not, I hope he doesn't go to Kentucky or Carolina. They will be tough enough to beat without him if we draw them in the tourney.

Both the Harrison Twins, Dakari Johnson, Julius Randle, and Young have big egos. I think the Harrison Twins and Dakari said they could beat Micheal Jordan in his prime in a one on one basketball game. I'm gonna laugh my head off when Kentucky becomes the lakers of college basketball. As far as Kansas goes, if they get another big 12 title for 10 straight, I'm satisfied enough with this young team.

There's no rule that states that a player has to commit to a school before the end of the spring signing period. You're probably right that he'll commit by the end and he'll sign an LOI and fax it in like most kids do. But if he doesn't then the scholarship offers are not going to be rescinded. Instead he will commit verbally to a school and then sign some other kind of financial aid agreement to accept his basketball scholarship.

i haven't been on any of the other message boards ( 'cause I'm not a troll and I don't care about them ) - but i would imagine they are much like ours. The majority of fans want him, some of us (yep, us) could not care less.

I wish Kansas fans on the boards would lose phrases like "Calisleazy" and "Drewche". Makes the rest of us look childish. Are other fanbases this immature? The only interaction I have with other fans is on ESPN.com as I don't go to other schools boards.

Spot on ralster, this board is very tame, it's nice. Mixed sites are always more aggressive. And the censorship here is at times over the top (I don't want to say anything too critical or it will be removed by the nazis).

"In our top story today Andrew Wiggens is close to making a decision about making a
decision as to where he is going to decide to play college basketball". " Andrews decision
to announce the decision has not been decided at this time". Cub reporter monkee had
an extremely difficult time deciding to run this story. RCJH KAAAAAUOOOOO!

1] THE EASY CHOICE - Go to FSU, be "The Man", be comfortable with modified expactations due to the lack of quality support talent, make family happy, nice comfort zone.

2] THE MODERATE CHOICE - Go to North Carolina, got into the recruiting late, nice team, nice coach, nice conference but is it really enough?

3] THE HARD CHOICE - Go to UK - Don't think Mom likes Cal, don't think Dad likes all the competition, tremendous pressure to not only win but go 40-0, could be an "ego meltdown", not this kid's style to bask in the limelight.

4] THE GAMBLING CHOICE - Go to KU - Uncertainty over NCAA, uncertainty over five new starters, strength program a plus, JO JO and Wayne a plus, HCBS a plus, weather most matches that of Canada so it would be just like home.

After this thorough analysis, my conclusion........not a friggin' clue!!!!!!!!!

The gambling choice, funny, because the article made me shake my head when I read there's a Las Vegas betting line. We get exposed to the seedy underside of agents/runners/aau coaches this week, and then I read there's a betting line on where a kid goes to college. Do you think any gamblers might try to get at this kid to make a quick buck too?

I have to disagree with saying "not this kid's style to bask in the limelight". After listening to many of his quotes about how good his game is & seeing him wait longer than just about anyone to commit - I think he likes all the attention. His ego unfortunately fits in well at UK.

I find the people who say if Wiggins reads these boards and messages he wouldnt come here, so if your logic is correct he isnt going to UNC either, out of boredom i trolled a few boards over there and funny thing is they are saying the exact same things as most of us. If this is the case the only is Kentucky were they seem to think he is already committed to them. Something i find interesting myself being investigative and all is i looked at who Wiggins follows a couple of Ku players on twitter but doesnt follow any Uk players, i found that interesting but im not reading into it to much.

talker- There was a tweet a while back during the McD's AA where Randle was hounding Wiggins on twitter with trash. Wiggins said, "He never shuts up..." I don't think he likes Randle all that well. In fact, Wiggins said, "I can't sleep."

Ummm, I'm pretty sure he's friends w/ Kennedy Meeks of UNC too though. And you throw in that he'd play 2 vs. FSU and his grandomother's nearby and they're not in "start over" mode like we are or he's not "the only one" like it would be in FSU or "one of too many" like it would be at UK and it's EXTREMELY easy to see a decision for UNC to be made.

Does anyone know if this Rodney Blackstock guy is associated with Rival Sports Management in Los Angeles? From their twitter account and Ben McLemore's twitter, Ben has signed with them. This is the same agency that got the Morris Twins and Thomas Robinson to sign on. Things might look worse for KU if Mr. Blackstock works for Rival.

“I know for him, he’s just ready to get the decision over with,” Leslie Thomas, Wiggins’ host family mom in West Virginia, told the Louisville Courier-Journal.

I can only imagine who is falling over themselves to get at this family friend, "host family mom." I don't understand why these people expose themselves to this messy scene. Next thing you know this "host mom" will be cited this time next year for something or having some connection to someone in the bball recruiting world.

Why can't these people close to the recruits keep their mouths shut or at best request anonymity? They have a reason for doing this. If they had the recruit's best interest at heart, they would keep their mouths shut and stay away from the recruiting world or people popping up for something about the recruit.

I have no facts to back this up and it may not be true at all in this case. Usually, host families like the one hosting Andrew Wiggins aren't hurting for money and are not easily bought because they usually have a kid of their own in the same school the kid they are hosting goes to or the mom or dad work at the school. Picture the family in the Blindside, but not multimillionaires, probably middle to upper-middle class family.

Pretty much what I figured. I'm guessing the family either has a direct connection to the Wiggins family prior to hosting Andrew or they have a kid already at the school, or one or both of the parents work at the school, or a combination of the 3. That pretty much confirms for me that the family is worth low 7 figure-high 6 figures so money wouldn't be a factor for them.

Its sign last, but not to see which players leave and what happens with the coaching carousel. The players that were leaving KU, UK, and FSU have been known for a long time. And Self, Cal, and Leonard aren't going anywhere.

It's been anything but a sure thing who would stay/go at UK. And what if Popavich busted a cerebral artery mid Craig "Purple Pants" Sager halftime interview and the Spurs came calling after Self? Quite a bit has settled in the last month since the ink dried on Pitino's tattoo.

As far as other motivation for delaying a decision, for players like Wiggins, cash will always be available - early, late and everywhere in between. But as we saw with BMac, the money is really with the agents scrambling for a piece of the NBA rookie contract and less so where they'll play college ball for one year. If a player or their family wants to go that route, its available no matter what stage of recruitment.

After reading about this recruitment "saga" for the past month, my gut feeling it is between FSU and UK. I think KU and NC are out of the picture. Think of it this way....at least we won't be second again.

Hey, LJW, maybe some articles about the kids we DO HAVE would be a good idea, don't you think!!????????